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As for violent personal sufferings, he will carry them off as
well as he can; if they overpass his endurance they will carry
him off.
And so in all his pain he asks no pity: there is always the
radiance in the inner soul of the man, untroubled like the light
in a lantern when fierce gusts beat about it in a wild turmoil of
wind and tempest.
But what if he be put beyond himself? What if pain grow so
intense and so torture him that the agony all but kills? Well,
when he is put to torture he will plan what is to be done: he
retains his freedom of action.
Besides we must remember that the Sage sees things very
differently from the average man; neither ordinary experiences
nor pains and sorrows, whether touching himself or others, pierce
to the inner hold. To allow them any such passage would be a
weakness in our soul.
And it is a sign of weakness, too, if we should think it gain not
to hear of miseries, gain to die before they come: this is not
concern for others' welfare but for our own peace of mind. Here
we see our imperfection: we must not indulge it, we must put it
from us and cease to tremble over what perhaps may be.
Anyone that says that it is in human nature to grieve over
misfortune to our household must learn that this is not so with
all, and that, precisely, it is virtue's use to raise the general
level of nature towards the better and finer, above the mass of
men. And the finer is to set at nought what terrifies the common
mind.
We cannot be indolent: this is an arena for the powerful
combatant holding his ground against the blows of fortune, and
knowing that, sore though they be to some natures, they are
little to his, nothing dreadful, nursery terrors.
So, the Sage would have desired misfortune?
It is precisely to meet the undesired when it appears that he has
the virtue which gives him, to confront it, his passionless and
unshakeable soul.
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